THE WAIPA POST. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. THURSDAY, 17th MAY, 1934. FROTH AND SENTIMENT.

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3467, 17 May 1934, Page 4

THE WAIPA POST. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. THURSDAY, 17th MAY, 1934. FROTH AND SENTIMENT.

IT is a certainty in all public life that froth and sentiment occupy a nowise unimportant place. These are days when sensationalism counts for more than sober, solid fact. The other day, in this column, attention was directed to a false leadership by a minority of discontented people who made braggart claims for the unemployed in this country. Some people, well-meaning though they may be, have sought to evade the fact and grasp the frothy sentiment that reposed behind the claims of these agitators. Modem education apparently serves some people little useful purpose, since they seem incapable of sifting material worth from sensational nothingness. The subject is tremendously important just now. The rigour of the times through which our world is passing has levied no greater toll upon anything than it has on common sense. Hardship and insecurity are searching taskmasters, and in &• way people can be pardoned if they become nervous when they visualise a future which offers only scant prospect of security. But even that cannot excuse an abandonment to sensationalism. If it were to do so then we would speedily become victim to the sensation-monger and fall prey to the dangerous doctrines he would prescribe for our good. What we have to cultivate is balance. It is not perhaps easy. The task ahead may offer only difficulty; moreover, it may contain scant prospect of any worth-while reward, and, worst of all, may contain no suggestion of permanency. The alluring prospect of experiment—of some proclaimed device which is held out as a cure for the social and economic disorder which has fallen upon us may seem to suggest an easy way out. But with it there is a need, an imperative demand, that we shall not submit too readily to the call for innovation. Centuries of experience must have taught the modern world that evolution is a gradual, steady process, and that hasty excursions into the realm of sentimental desire can cause greater ailments than they are intended to cure.

It cannot be said that our race is degenerate. Frequently we are reminded that people of to-day lack the stamina of the pioneers who blazed the trail in New Zealand. It seems to have been an age-old reproach of each generation that it was degenerate. Through every epoch, according to the commentators of the times, this process of decadence, combined with the loss of all that is good and noble and the increase of evil, has been going on. Nearly a hundred years ago the young people of the day were so outrageous in their behaviour that they were described as having taken the “ nots ” out of the Commandments and put them in the Creed. Remembering that this has been the permanent complaint of age against youth, and knowing that, despite all dismal predictions, the sum total of human history has been steady progress and gradual betterment, sagacious observers are not prepared to denounce “ our own times.” They find evidence of an uninterrupted onward march to offset what may be symptoms of decline. Yet if the mirror is held up to life at a certain angle the reflection can be found to be ugly. The recorded events of the day—almost every day—seem to indicate, in the words of Mr Dooley, that “!th’ wurruld is going to pot—that th’ future iv th’ race is desthruetion.” It may be worth while to consider how that impression is created and to what extent it is deceptive. In human affairs people are interested in the unusual and abnormal. The sober newspapers record, each day the events of the political world, movements in social advancement, the conquests of science. Part of the news service also is the chronicling of crime, quarrels, bankruptcies, disasters, and all the unpleasant and extraordinary things that occur. Wlhy are those items published ? Be-

cause they are news, and they are news because they contain something of the surprising or unusual. There lies the clue to a corrective, reassuring conclusion. If evil, eccentricity, or any form of ill-behaviour is news it is because it is exceptional, not commonplace. Should a clergyman do wrong the fac,t is widely published, but there would be no interest in the announcement that thousands of the clergy were consistently doing right. A recent contributor to the Inquirer, who declines to be deceived by the apparent volume of corruption, infidelity, and dishonesty, pertinently points out that the announcement of these occurrences merely goes to prove that honesty, affection, neighbourliness, and fidelity in married life and in business are the rule and not the exception. There would be no purpose in announcing that a suburban mayor had completed his term without emibezzling the council funds; that the chief cashier of a leading bank was scrupulously honest; that a famous business hodse met all its obligations; that a young couple in any suburban street were living happily together; or that any set of neighbours were on friendly terms. But if the mayor was arrested, the cashier absconded, the business house went bankrupt, the young people sought divorce, or the neighbours took out cross-summonses for assault, the event, being unusual, would become news. AVihen all these exceptional occurrences are brought together through the marvellous modern methods of communications, it ipay appear that the extent of vice, dishonesty, and quarrelsomeness is increasing. It should be rememr bered, however, that the whole world and all its oddities are surveyed in the morning budget of news. If a French swindler had been found out and hunted fifty years ago New Zealand -readers would have remained in blissful ignorance of the episode. To-day they know the facts as soon as the people of Paris, and also learn contemporaneously with the newspaper readers of New York that arm-oured-car gangsters have brought off another coup. Wihen the balance is struck there is justification for Mr Dooley’s comforting conclusion, after being told that “ th’ whole fabric iv civilised society is in danger,” “ it isn’t so.” Between the froth and the sediment is the pure fluid of kindliness, courage, loyalty, and upright bearing which comprises the great bulk of human conduct. This mass of ordinary activity and experience is never recorded. The lurid lights fill the eye, to the neglect of the quieter tones comprising the great wide background. Hugh Walpole attributes half the discontent with our own time to poetic imaginings of earlier ages. Undoubtedly there is a confusion in comparisons which leads to false conclusions. The parents of to-day—in-dustrious, self-sactificing people, striving for the happiness and wellbeing of their families, helping theii neighbours, carrying their civic and social responsibilities —are the youths and girls of ten or fifteen years ago, who, according to some of their elders, were entirely unfitted for the duties of parenthood and citizenship. Youth after the war, it will be remembered, was regarded by some as almost completely irresponsible. One such example of falsified judgments is useful for general purposes. Despite all outward appearances, the civilised world consists mostly of decent, honest people, upright in conduct, kindly in purpose, and finding happiness in the innocent pleasures of home-and social life. They, an not the dictators and demagogues, are the bulwark of civilisation. Their daily conduct is more representative of the present state of men’s minds and hearts than that of the relatively few whose excesses, crimes, failures, and eccentricities form part of the news. Good behaviour is commonplace. To be law-abiding, temperate, and clean-living is the usual thing. That need not induce unwarranted self-esteem but it should help to dispose of the belief, or the fear, that evil is conquering good.